UI way to filter issues by label exclusion

[esquevin]

Allowing to filter the issues that doesn't have a specific label is really powefull, especially if combined with other label filters.

It works very well with tags like "nice_to_have" "improvements" "later" that are very powerfull to help you when you start having way too many issues to handle

[JcMinarro]

Do you have any update about that issue ??

[dmakhno]

Agree, this seems killer-feature

[JcMinarro]

I am doing an script that uses GitHub API and does a filter to implement that feature.
When I finish that script I am going to share it in a repository

[patcon]

@IGZJcMinarro Nice! See: #128 and https://github.com/skratchdot/github-enhancement-suite

[LongChair]

Completed agreed on the initial feature request. would be nice to be able to manage issues label with excluding some labels.

[bkeepers]

You can do this with search right now.

https://github.com/isaacs/github/search?q=pushstate+-label%3Abug&type=Issues

[tuxayo]

Thanks! That will help out even if not the most convenient.

[patcon]

Thanks @bkeepers!

@esquevin Maybe we could change to issue title to be something about adding a UI for that?

[Ozzzie]

A UI not selector would be a useful addition.

[linkwoman]

thanks @bkeepers !

[sharwell]

You can use the syntax -label:name to do this now. If your label has a space, then -label:"label name" works. For example, you could use the following search to find all issue which are up for grabs, except for code fixes.

is:open -label:"code fix" label:"up for grabs"

https://github.com/DotNetAnalyzers/StyleCopAnalyzers/issues?q=is%3Aopen+-label%3A%22code+fix%22+label%3A%22up+for+grabs%22

[prohor33]

thank you @bkeepers!!!

[adamjerickson]

+1 @sharwell

[hawkerm]

@sharwell great tip! Would be nice to have the quick shortcut though still in the UI, so +1 still for this issue.

[bearnard]

+1

[thgreasi]

+1

[soda-chanh]

+1

[tpfeiffer]

+1

[Fresheyeball]

👍

[naoufal]

👍

[Fresheyeball]

So, its debatable as to whether its a UI way, but this feature does already exist. The filter input in the upper right supports lucene syntax (or something like it). So you can simply negate a label like so

-label:myLabel

The - before the world label means negate or exclude. (note, label names are case sensitive)

[hawkerm]

@Fresheyeball, yeah @bkeepers and @sharwell pointed this out. This request is still about just having an easy way to exclude them from the labels drop down though.

[Fresheyeball]

Well. When I googled it, this thread popped up, and I didnt learn that there is already a way. So I thought leaving the current solution here would be good for other googlers.

[ChaosCrafter]

Actually, while the -label: technique seems to work, it doesn't seem to work for milestones.
I'd like to be able to pick up any pull requests that weren't in "Ready for Merge", or "Rework Required" - two of the milestones we use.
The ideal as I see it would be to extend the language to allow fieldname in:{item1,item2}

[mikermcneil]

@sharwell thanks for the tip about labels w/ spaces in their names! Linked back from here.

[John-Dormevil]

So, its debatable as to whether its a UI way, but this feature does already exist. The filter input in the upper right supports lucene syntax (or something like it). So you can simply negate a label like so

-label:myLabel

The - before the world label means negate or exclude. (note, label names are case sensitive)

please add this in official documentation :)

[hepcat72]

Still, you need to have an exact entire label to use that -label:myLabel search feature. Allowing wildcards would be great.

[clarkbw]

👋I see the searching issues & prs help docs doesn't include this but the search syntax docs has examples of how to search for the negatives.

https://help.github.com/articles/understanding-the-search-syntax/#exclude-certain-results

We're looking at how we can improve the docs in that area right now. Thx!

[tierninho]

You can also use no:label to exclude for example, all issues without a label. Same can be done for milestones, etc...

[hepcat72]

Still, it has to be the whole label. You can’t exclude all labels containing a string.

[lukehefson]

Hi folks 👋

You can now use the alt keyboard modifier (or ⌥ on macOS) to exclude labels using the filter 🎉

https://github.blog/changelog/2019-03-05-exclude-labels-from-search/

Thanks for all you feedback on this – we really appreciate it!!!

[TPS]

I think I'd count this done, but if any objection (the only 1 can think of is keyboard use, which may be awkward on mobile), please comment, & I'll reopen! 🙇

[goodmind]

@TPS how to search all issues with any label, like no:label but any:label?

[TPS]

AFAICT, -no:label can do it, but, on mobile, I don't see a UI option for labels @ all.…

@lukehefson How about it?

[goodmind]

-no:label doesn't work as expected

[lukehefson]

how to search all issues with any label, like no:label but any:label?

We currently don't support this.

@goodmind Could I ask what your use case is?

[goodmind]

Just wanted to compare number of issues with labels and without them

[lukehefson]

Just wanted to compare number of issues with labels and without them

Interesting! Thanks for letting us know 😄

Not ideal– but you could use is:issue no:label and then take the number of open and closed from the list and add them together and then subtract that from the total number of issue. So for this repo that would currently be:

• 386 Open + 261 Closed = 647 issues without a label
• 1067 - 647 = 420 issues with a label

[maxisam]

I just tried is:open is:issue -label:backlog in one of my private repo

Apparently there is a bug because It returns some close issues. Without is:open, it returns all close issues.

If I reopen those issues and close them again, everything works as expected.

[cryptiklemur]

-review:changes-requested Doesn't seem to work as expected.

[reindert-vetter]

@aequasi try review:-changes-requested

[hepcat72]

I think I'd count this done, but if any objection (the only 1 can think of is keyboard use, which may be awkward on mobile), please comment, & I'll reopen! 🙇

OK, so should I create a new issue for this contribution to the discussion on this issue?

[asfernandes]

Would be good to support wildcard in exclusion. For example: -label:"component: *"

[ndom91]

With a label "dependencies", for example. "-label:dependencies" did the trick 👍

[hepcat72]

With a label "dependencies", for example. "-label:dependencies" did the trick 👍

Perhaps you aren't responding WRT the request for a wildcard, but that doesn't to the trick to find issues without "component:*" labels. E.g. if I have a series of labels such as component:reporting, component:usage, component:GUI, component:debug, component:options... and I search for -label:component to find issues without a component label, it filters 0 issues.

[ReikaKalseki]

I just discovered this thread and oh my god does this help: https://github.com/ReikaKalseki/Reika_Mods_Issues/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+-label%3A%22Can%27t+Reproduce%22+

[ndom91]

With a label "dependencies", for example. "-label:dependencies" did the trick +1

Perhaps you aren't responding WRT the request for a wildcard, but that doesn't to the trick to find issues without "component:*" labels. E.g. if I have a series of labels such as component:reporting, component:usage, component:GUI, component:debug, component:options... and I search for -label:component to find issues without a component label, it filters 0 issues.

Yeah, that obviously doesn't fix the wildcard situation. What might work in your case though, is the following:

-label:component:reporting -label:component:usage ...

I know its annoying, but you can save it as a filter in the Github notification page so you only have to type it in once.

[hepcat72]

I think when you have more than a couple categories of labels and want to do more than a simple search and combine a couple of those, then saving shortcuts doesn't seem to scale well, but thanks for the tip. That does seem useful.